News

Game of Thrones is coming back soon-ish! Yay! But before we return to the world of Westeros and Essos, author George R. R. Martin has another universe for us to check out, and you can do so in VR.

Syfy just launched a series of 360-degree tie-in videos to its new series, Nightflyers, which is based on a sci-fi horror novella written by Martin and released all the way back in 1980. Written and directed by showrunner and executive producer Jeff Buhler, the series consists of three videos that focus on different characters and elements of the world.

Sadly, Syfy is one of the rare YouTube channels that blocks its content based on location, so you may not be able to watch if you’re outside the US. Otherwise, you can grab your VR headset (now including Oculus Go), boot up YouTube and you’re away.

In fact, Martin himself spoke a little about VR to Syfy, saying he loved the tech but was waiting for it to evolve. “The technology is not mature and we haven’t really figured out how to tell stories for it,” he said, “but I think, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, maybe sooner, it may replace television and film and other things as a totally immersive sort of art form that you can, not only, you know, like read a book or watch a television show, but you can live an adventure.”

He spoke of a possible future in which an audience immerses itself in and interacts with a world and maybe even affects the outcome of a story. “But I think we may be like the theater before Shakespeare, you know?” Martin continued. “There were plays before Shakespeare, but it was the Elizabethan theatre that really made the theatre come alive. And of course, movies began with little, real things of trains arriving at the station and then eventually we got up to Star Wars.”

Facebook’s Oculus released a new update to its Unity integration package to make it easier for developers of Rift-only games to port to HTC Vive. The new “cross-platform development support” was added in version 1.31.0. The release notes state that this is an experimental feature, and that it “may change or be removed”.

The Situation Until Now

What makes modern game engines like Unity so useful for both developers and end users is that they support many platforms with the same project and code — eliminating development time to “port” a game from one platform to the other. The lofty goal of Unity is to let you focus on actually making your game and let the engine itself worry about platform differences.

However in reality, things aren’t quite so simple — especially in the VR space. Unity supports the Oculus API and SteamVR API with no effort from the developer required, but this support is fairly limited to essential features. So Oculus and Valve each provide Unity packages on top of these APIs — the Oculus Integration and SteamVR Plugin. These packages contain scripts, prefabs, resources, example scenes, and extra APIs to allow developers to have more than just the barebones VR support that Unity’s engine provides.

The problem is, the SteamVR Plugin does not directly support the Oculus API, and Oculus Store requires submissions to have direct Oculus API support to be approved. If a developer wanted to release on the Oculus Store for Rift and Steam for Rift and HTC Vive, they had to use both packages, or the generic Unity XR framework which is generally considered inferior to both. Using both packages takes extra development time and adds extra complexity to the project.

The New Update

The change in the new Oculus Integration release is that its core features now support the SteamVR API, instead of just the Rift’s Oculus API. From a development perspective nothing changes except that these prefabs and APIs will set and return values for a HTC Vive instead of just for a Rift.

The features supported so far are:

Camera: the OVRCameraRig prefab used to handle the virtual cameras for the user’s eyes and gameobjects for the user’s controllers fully supports the HTC Vive

Tracking: the API calls to get the velocity or angular velocity of the headset will work for HTC Vive

Input: the API calls to get the button states, thumbstick positions, and trigger depression of the Touch controllers – for HTC controllers the trackpad is treated like a thumbstick, and the app button (above the trackpad) is treated like the top Y/B buttons on Touch (controls mapped to the A or X button need to be changed)

Haptics: the same APIs for haptic feedback on Touch now works on HTC controllers

Guardian/Chaperone: the API to retrieve the user’s Guardian boundary and playspace will for HTC Vive users retrieve the Chaperone boundary and playspace

Avatars: Oculus Avatars will work on SteamVR, but non-Oculus users will have to select from a predefined list instead of creating their own (this was actually enabled a while

UPDATE: the friend referring does not need to own the specific headset you are buying

If anyone you know has an Oculus headset, you can currently get an Oculus Rift for just $314.10 or Oculus Go for just $161.10. The Go price is USA-only, but the Rift price can be attained in any of the 22 countries the Rift ships to.

How? Facebook’s Oculus is currently running a Black Friday sale on Rift and Go, bringing the prices down to $349 and $179 respectively. That’s a good deal already, but recently Oculus also added a 10% off referral program for Rift and Go.

The good news? They stack. That’s right, the Black Friday discount and 10% off from referral can both apply together, bringing the prices down to $314.10 and $161.10 respectively.

So how does it work? All you need is someone in the US who already owns an Oculus headset. This could be a a real life friend, or just that person from a Discord you’re in who always talks about their shiny new VR headset. Tell them to sign in to this page on the Oculus website, select the headset you want from the dropdown list, enter your email address, and click send. The person referring can do this up to 3 times.

You’ll then receive an email with a 25-character promo code. Simply expand the ‘Have a promo Code?’ box in the top right of the Oculus.com basket and paste in the promo code you received. You should then see 10% off applied on top of the current Black Friday discount.

As stated above, Go referral codes are strictly USA-only, but the Rift codes will work for any of the 22 countries which Facebook ships the Rift to. The person sending the referral code however has to be in the USA, or at least have a US IP address. That means Europeans can get a Rift for €359.10, Canadians for C$404.10, and Australians for AU$476.10. All you need is a friend in the US with a Rift.

This is the lowest price the Rift and Go have ever been sold at. Amazon sold the Rift for $399 with a $100 Amazon Gift Card on Prime Day in 2017, but that lasted for only an hour or so. The Black Friday weekend deal ends on Monday, so you’ll need to take advantage of this double deal before then if you want these prices. We highly recommend that you do so.

Resolution Games’ most recent VR adventure, Narrows, is making the jump from Daydream to Oculus Go and Gear VR.

Narrows is a swashbuckling pirate game fitted with several minigames. You’ll take on enemy ships with the command of canons, stop rival fiends coming aboard with your sword and plot a course across the seas with a giant map. As you gather loot you’ll be able to customize your ship in an effort to become the true scourge of the seas. The game originally launched on Daydream earlier this year. We’ve always thought it was pretty neat.

The news comes shortly after Resolution Games announced that it has raised $7.5 million in a recent round of funding. The company is set to use the money to expand its efforts in both VR and AR, which include the recently-released Angry Birds game on Magic Leap and the popular VR fishing game, Bait!.

The Oculus Rift is amazing. And as more and more times passes, it just gets more and more amazing. We do our best to update this list every few months with the best and most amazing VR experiences money can buy for your shiny new Oculus Rift.

We’ve got nine games in particular right here for you that we think are the absolute best games this system has to offer in the post-Touch era. Before we get started there are just a few caveats. We will not be including the original pack-in titles like Lucky’s Tale and EVE: Valkyrie for consideration — even though both are great games — because they already came with most initial headsets. We’re also not including simplistic free experiences such as Farlands, First Contact, or Oculus Dreamdeck, or free art apps like Quill.

Titles on this list are in no particular order, they’re all recommended equally. Let’s get started!

Beat Saber (Our Early Access Review)

What else can be said about this game that hasn’t been said already? It’s amazing. If you for some reason don’t know about this game, it goes like this: you’ve got a red and blue lightsaber, one i neach hand, and you’re tasked with slicing blocks that come cascading towards you to the rhythm of the music. It’s like DDR with lightsabers, basically.

Beat Saber is easily one of the most addictive VR games to date and it’s dead simple to pick up and play by anyone regardless of VR experience. And in the PC VR version you can download amazing custom songs!

Onward (Tips Guide)

This is the hardcore VR shooter for hardcore VR gamers. If you grew up playing games like Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, SOCOM, and other similar tactical military shooters, then you’ll feel right at home in Onward. It has much more in common with the grueling teamwork of those games than the run-and-gun hip firing found in modern shooters like Call of Duty, and it was all created by one guy.

From holding your rifle with both hands and using your walkie talkie on your shoulder, to pulling out your knife to sneak up on an opponent, Onward is the visceral, realistic VR game many people have been waiting for. It uses full roomscale tracking with motion controllers and artificial locomotion attached to the thumb stick— no teleporting here. The community is healthy and fun, making this one of the clear standout titles for VR gamers thus far.

Get it on Oculus Home or Steam.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR (Review: 9/10)

For a game that wasn’t originally designed for VR at all, Skyrim VR is nothing short of impressive. This really is the Skyrim that you know and love, but now you can enjoy it like never before with the immersive presence of a VR headset. With a large variety of control schemes to choose from and hundreds of hours of content, this is a game that all RPG fans should play as long as you can look past the wonky controls, downgraded visuals, and frustrating UI. Not to mention all of the mods for

Now that the HTC Vive has been out for a while, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of content flow onto Valve’s flagship VR headset. Hundreds of games live on Steam with HTC Vive support, although it’s worth clarifying that the majority of them offer very little in the way of engaging content beyond a simple gameplay mechanic that’s fun for 30 minutes.

As a result, we feel the need to provide a definitive source with an up-to-date list regarding the very best Vive games that you can play right now. We’ll keep an eye on the VR gaming landscape and update this list over time, as appropriate, to better represent what’s available.

Obviously, it goes without saying that the first three Vive games you should play are the original three that came bundled with the Vive’s very first preorders: Tilt Brush, Job Simulator, and Fantastic Contraption. While these titles may not be bundled any longer, they’re still awesome demonstrations of what VR can accomplish by focusing on very specific concepts. Additionally, The Gallery: Episode 1 – Call of the Starseed, and Zombie Training Simulator were included with Vive bundles for a long time and also deserve recognition as being excellent games in their own right. Plus Google Earth VR, The Lab, and Rec Room are three of the best apps period, but since they’re totally free we opted to leave them off this list for now.

But this list is focused on games you don’t have access to out of the box. If you just got a Vive or are cruising for something to play, you already tried the bundle games. You want something more. And that’s where this list comes in.

None of these games come bundled with the device, prices will likely change depending on which week or month you’re reading this list, and chances are they’ll all receive updates and patches making them even better than they are today. But the fact remains that at the time of writing, these are the 9 must-play Vive games available right now, in no particular order.

Beat Saber (Our Early Access Review)

What else can be said about this game that hasn’t been said already? It’s amazing. If you for some reason don’t know about this game, it goes like this: you’ve got a red and blue lightsaber, one i neach hand, and you’re tasked with slicing blocks that come cascading towards you to the rhythm of the music. It’s like DDR with lightsabers, basically.

Beat Saber is easily one of the most addictive VR games to date and it’s dead simple to pick up and play by anyone regardless of VR experience. And in the PC VR version you can download amazing custom songs!

LA Noire: The VR Case Files (Our Review)

As the winner of our 2017 Vive Game of the Year Award, it was only appropriate that we commemorate the occasion by adding the title to our Best Vive Games list as well!

In LA Noire VR you take on the role of Cole Phelps as you explore 1940s-era Los Angeles solving crimes, inspecting

We’ll also point out the new VR Essentials bundle pulling together some of the best VR games. Even if you already have some of the games in the bundle you can still benefit from the discount for the remaining titles. The bundle includes Arizona Sunshine, Thumper, Budget Cuts, Space Pirate Trainer, Job Simulator, Sairento, Gorn and Superhot.

Disney’s summer internship program results in a new VR tool aimed at 3D animation. It’s no secret that Disney is constantly looking for new ways to boost the efficiency of their creators. More importantly, the massive American conglomerate actively fosters creativity within its workplace, regularly experimenting with new technology on potentially groundbreaking projects. Most recently,

The Washington Post is here to make carving your Thanksgiving turkey easy this holiday season. There’s no feast quite like a Thanksgiving dinner. Whether it be the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, or a variety of other delicious foods, many of us will no doubt find ourselves trapped in a paralyzing food coma